Track Initiation
Track initiation is the process of creating a new radar track from an unassociated radar plot. When the tracker is first switched on, all the initial radar plots are used to create new tracks, but once the tracker is running, only those plots that couldn't be used to update an existing track are used to spawn new tracks. Typically a new track is given the status of tentative until plots from subsequent radar updates have been successfully associated with the new track. Tentative tracks are not shown to the operator and so they provide a means of preventing false tracks from appearing on the screen - at the expense of some delay in the first reporting of a track. Once several updates have been received, the track is confirmed and displayed to the operator. The most common criterion for promoting a tentative track to a confirmed track is the "M-of-N rule", which states that during the last N radar updates, at least M plots must have been associated with the tentative track - with M=3 and N=5 being typical values. More sophisticated approaches may use a statistical approach in which a track becomes confirmed when, for instance, its covariance matrix falls to a given size.
Read more about this topic: Radar Tracker
Famous quotes containing the words track and/or initiation:
“What is the use of going right over the old track again? There is an adder in the path which your own feet have worn. You must make tracks into the Unknown.”
—Henry David Thoreau (18171862)
“The difficult and risky task of meeting and mastering the newwhether it be the settlement of new lands or the initiation of new ways of lifeis not undertaken by the vanguard of society but by its rear. It is the misfits, failures, fugitives, outcasts and their like who are among the first to grapple with the new.”
—Eric Hoffer (19021983)